1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wire processing apparatus and a wire processing method for separating and recovering an electric conductor from a coated wire and for heating a coated wire to cross-link a coating insulator and adhere well the coating insulator to an electric conductor by heat shrinking.
2. Description of the Related Art
In present technical state, most of coated wires such as wire harnesses are not recycled. However, in order to encourage resource conservation and reduce load applied to environment, it is important to recycle the coated wires. As a technique allowing us to recycle a coated wire, there exits a peeling process to peel off a coating resin from a coated steel pipe. The peeling process is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-214557. In the peeling process, high frequency dielectric heat is applied to the coated steel pipe, and the coating resin having coated a surface of the steel pipe is heated to a melting point or higher. Thereby, an inner layer portion of the coating resin is brought into a molten state, and an outer layer portion of the coating resin is brought into a softened state. Under such a state, the coating resin is peeled off from the steel pipe.
If the conventional peeling process is applied to the coated wire for recycling an electric conductor, however, since the electric conductor without the coating insulator is recovered in its linear shape, it is necessary to again form the electric conductor into a predetermined shape after the peeling process. There is an adverse possibility that the electric conductor is deteriorated, if the electric conductor is reheated in order to form it into the predetermined shape. Therefore, the peeling process is not suitable technique to recycle the electric conductor. For this reason, it is not possible to recover the electric conductor efficiently in a suitable state for recycling it by separating the coated wire into the electric conductor and the coating insulator by means of the peeling process.
In another present technical state, as a technique allowing us to cross-link a coating insulator and adhere well the coating insulator to an electric conductor, there exits a cross-linking process to cross-link a rubber arranged on a mandrel by means of high frequency heat in order to produce a tight rubber hose. The cross-linking process is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-67018. In the cross-linking process, a rubber is arranged on a mandrel having a dielectric layer therein, and high frequency is applied to the dielectric layer in the mandrel to heat the rubber arranged on the mandrel, which cross-links the rubber so as to produce a tight rubber hose.
If the conventional cross-linking process is applied to the coated wire, however, since the cross-linking process normally employs large-scale installation as high frequency applied means, a wire processing apparatus also becomes large size. In addition, in the patent application document, it is not concretely described to apply the high frequency to the mandrel.